


Disconnect

by Answrs



Category: Mystery Skulls Animated
Genre: (It makes sense in context), (Not really but eh), /dies, Arthur's Goin' Ghost!, Illustrated, Other, This has been over four years in the making
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-05-29 04:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15065324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Answrs/pseuds/Answrs
Summary: dis·con·nectˌdiskəˈnektverb1. break the connection of or between."we cannot disconnect his thinking from his activity"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> written 4 years ago, quite literally. original note to follow:
> 
> so ectoimp i believe was the first to do the artie-has-his-soul-removed-by-cult idea with that beautiful artwork of theirs. (or if not, the one most people know about)  
> but in english ~~today~~ [FOUR YEARS AGO] i had a thought of a different path the story could take...

One minute he's struggling, drugged and terrified as they hold him down in the dark room, chanting archaic phrases from a blood stained tome and-  
a flash of light and suddenly he's upright. Floating? He looks down to the side and... _oh_ . His thoughts aren't racing anymore and he should probably be more worried than he is about that, but he's more apathetic towards it right now because... _wow_ . He doesn't remember ever feeling this... _calm_ before. It's like the total opposite of possession, he has total control over himself and it's just so quiet and peaceful.

 _Quiet_ ... why _is_ it so quiet?  
He realizes it's the first time he can remember where the voices in his head aren't screaming, doubting, calling him worthless, cutting him down-  
And just like that the doors burst open and a fiery ghost flies through, blue and white streaks quite literally hot on his heels. Arthur watches apathetically as Lewis starts taking out the cultists while the other two rush to his... _body?_ It's still breathing so he guesses it's not a corpse yet. Huh. They don't seem to notice him and he guesses not even the kitsune can sense him watching. Mystery grabs the nearby jar where the one hooded figure had placed that strange glowing ball- he realizes belatedly it's probably his... _essence_ , or something, and snatches it up. Vivi shoves it into his chest and just like that he's back, waves of pain crashing over him, sick feeling returning full force, loud and chaotic, slamming into him like a battering ram.

Arthur’s mind is all addled by the drugs and confusion (and probably a concussion to boot, _ow_ ). Once all the cultists are subdued Lewis carries the poor man back to the van, head lolling to the side and drifting in and out of consciousness. Vivi and Mystery collect some artifacts and follow before the police show up.  
  
Later when he wakes in his room, head bandaged and pounding, he asks for the old book. It's not uncommon for him to look up whatever ritual a cult had tried to use him in that time. At first it's just to see what happened to him that night, he _swears_ , but _maybe_ just a little bit to know if he could, _ahem_ , have it happen again. And if he jots down some notes about how to do it, well, no one has to know....

He pushes it to the back of his mind for a few weeks, until one really stressful day everything is going wrong and he can't sleep and the voices _will. not. shut. Up!_ He digs out the notebook and says a chant and suddenly he can move and think and there's no orb this time, he just has to touch his body to get back in later and he's _free-!_

* * *

He's like a junkie discovering a new drug, on some level he knows it's probably bad but it's just so _freeing_ , to escape for a little while. He doesn't want to die, doesn't want to put his friends or Lance through that and he likes existing, it's just... _hard_ sometimes, you know? And if he's careful no one has to even realize he's doing it! He can not just figuratively, but _literally_ dissociate himself from the situation when things get hard.  
                                                        
But the soul is like a sticker; you can peel it off and put it back, but it starts losing its ability to stay and falls off easier and easier. Not only that, it starts to pull away more of a person as it goes, larger and larger parts of his essence escaping his body each time. And as that happens, trying to force it all back in together again just gets harder and harder and it's a feedback loop of  
living struggles  > free spirit > pain > carefree > even more miserable than before > more likely to do it again

Being stuck back in a body after having a taste of escape just makes him more eager for it to happen again and he's becoming more corporeal/visible as he jumps from alive to not-dead and back.  
  
It gets to the point where he's more zombie than living, only barely not a corpse possessed by his own ghost, but it's not until he’s thrown out again by yet another cult and leads the group back to the ritual that his friends realize this is the calmest and happiest they can recall him being in months? ?? Why is he smiling and not freaking out? The fuck?  
  
Surprisingly, it's not Mystery but a deadbeat who finds him out. It wanders into his room to see Arthur relaxing, arms behind his head and legs kicked back...[ floating about 4 feet above a very corpse looking him](http://answrs.tumblr.com/post/119562651040/sleepy-babs-ghost-artie-wouldnt-you-like-to). It runs panicking to master Lewis immediately because _'yellow human is ghost??! How happen what do!?!!'_

Cue the three others bursting into his room, startling him out of his doze. He blinks at them a few times, then looks down and realizes that 'oh. ...shit.' Before poking a foot down and sucking himself back in. He peers up at them with a sheepish 'h...hey guys... f-fancy seeing you here...' only to be quickly interrupted by a frantic group's questions.  
_'ARTHUR HOLY SHIT WHAT HAPPENED WHO DID THIS TO YOU HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN LIKE THAT WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US LOUD YELLING WORDS'_  
'Uh... erm...'  
He tries not to look at the stack of research material in the corner by his desk, and falls miserably. Mystery takes a few steps into the room to see the titles and freezes wide eyed at the subject matter.  
'Heh uh, yeah... about that... So, uh... you remember that one cult a few months back?'

* * *

Mystery finally puts the clues together but by then it's far too late to fix the damage, especially when Arthur won't see what he's doing to himself is a very bad thing. He might actually lash out when they confront him about it actually - _it's not a problem why would you want to stop me from actually being_ **_happy_ ** _for once nothing else works im sick of being miserable all the damned time!_                      
(Yeah, that goes over well.)  
  
The outburst makes them all freeze and  
_oh no he wasn't supposed to say that oh no no no_ ( _But it is their fault, isn't it?_ a voice says, and it sounds disturbingly like his own). The arms clutching him go slack and he tears off down the hall. Running from problems got him into this but it's easier than facing his friends after that ( _ex-friends you mean, they won't want you to stay after that with everything you put them through you ungrateful brat///no no no no shut up shut up shut up-!_ )

Eventually they reach a compromise of sorts. From Mystery they know there's no way to stop the degrading of his soul-body connection by now, and they don't want him to hide even more from them. So ‘ _we won't stop you from this but please, it doesn't matter what we're doing just come tell us when you feel like you need to_ ’. It gives them the opportunity to talk/cuddle with him and maybe convince him not to 'go ghostly’, and, if he still does, they can watch over him and his body to make sure nothing happens to ( _either?_ ) of him.  
  
This agreement has a few more benefits to it than they first realize. Since art's not fully dead yet, if a building is only warded against ghosts (as opposed to all spirits, magic beings, demons, the undead, the nonliving, vampires, werewolves, whatever-else-have-yous) he can curl up in the van and go scope the place out while the rest stay put.

* * *

As time goes on, Arthur is steadily becoming more spirit than human. His body is deteriorating as he forgets to maintain it more often than not (“ _yes, Arthur, your meatsack still needs to eat to live_ ”). Lewis actually assigns a troop of deadbeats whose job is specifically to make sure he drinks at least every couple hours. 

They discover too that he's much less open to possession now, since his body recognizes his spirit more as a separate being than its own. Since one can only be possessed by a single foreign spirit at a time it's a crapshoot what happens when a ghost tries to take him over. If he's considered the body's 'self' possessions go as normal, with him more able to hold sway or fight it off. If it decides 'ghost', a weak spirit would just bounce off, so to speak, while a stronger one would probably boot him out altogether as it took over (and in the sudden confusion of ' _wait what'_ he'd be able to kick them back out again)

((Lew is stronger than him but they totally play the 'x-treme' version of the 'lean against each other while walking and try to push each other over' game, where the goal instead is to stay in or overtake the body. Good practice for both of them- Lewis on possession and Arthur on fighting intrusions (he himself can't possess another person, just, er, himself). This is obviously much later on, when the dust has settled. Mystery still doesn't approve. Vivi makes bets. The deadbeat who first found him has a very lucrative gambling ring going by now.))

Continuing the list of changes, as his soul (very gradually) crosses over and the ghostlier side takes hold they start noticing more things popping up. He definitely becomes more territorial, or, for lack of better word, _ahem_ , possessive. It's a slow change of course, since instead of a sudden switch from living to dead like normal it's spread out, and thus much more gradual. But, much like with the defending of his 'vessel' thing, he's more aggressive towards non-friends, which combined with a lessened preservation instinct for his body makes him more (actively) protective of what's 'his'. Towards the end he starts to manifest a few sparks or weak object levitation with high emotions, precursors to abilities he'd have as a fully formed ghost. *(Think that really beautiful piece of alive Lewis with the floating dishes in the kitchen, you know the one I mean) [it was like five years ago no they won't]

* * *

It all culminates on a case, Arthur has been snatched again (more just an annoyance to him by now then an actual threat). He feels a needle prick his skin as he flows out, invisible to his captor.

The team don't know much what their plans are, so he decides to stick around for a bit before finding the others. He follows to an underground chamber and... yeah. That's a cult. A bit more advanced than some others, they actually have a stone altar to haul his meatsa- er, _body_ to. He's more interested in the book held open by the leader to care much. A quick glance at the writing looks like this is one of the longer chants, which generally means a more powerful demon and _yeah_ , he should probably go get the others now.  
Good thing too, the man is determined to finish the ritual when they burst in, continuing to chant even as his guards fall around him. They just barely reach him before the creature appears.

As they collect themselves and destroy the circle, Arthur goes up to the stone to collect himself. But when he touches his hand to the chest, instead of the familiar vacuumed feeling of being sucked back inside... nothing happens. So he tries again, to no result. Lewis looks up to see him poking his body with a miffed expression, then throwing his hands up in the air. He freezes for a moment, seeming lost in thought, before almost robotically pressing forward again, rummaging inside his body's chest as if looking for something. With a small cry of triumph Arthur yanks his hand back out, a beating gold object clutched in his hand. He blinks a few times, seemingly coming out of his daze, before looking down at the anchor in his palm and back up at Lewis with wide, black eyes and a look of dawning realization perfectly encapsulating the phrase _‘wait… shit’._

As he moves towards Lewis, his face seems to melt, flesh blurring into the familiar bone white skull of death. For all they've seen it coming for a while now, it's still jarring to see his friend superimposed onto this skeleton before them. It's a sign that, no getting around it or taking it back, Arthur is now well and truly _dead_. If they shed a few tears despite themselves, well, a life lost is still lost, even if they do stick around afterwards.

 

They aren't sure if the injection was to euthanize the sacrifice, or if it was just to sedate and lower its heart rate, which would have killed the body in its coma-like state if Arthur left for too long to restore it. Regardless of what happened, the outcome is still very much something they need to deal with. The place needs to be cleaned of magical artifacts, cultists need memories altered, police need to be called, and they have to decide what to do about... _that_ .  
  
They _could_ hide the body, take it back to the mansion, pretend nothing happened. But it wouldn't be long until he slipped up, the Peppers wondering why he's not eating, Lance seeing him floating tools around, getting stuck on one of the sigils in Duet’s office... Even if they don't notice, in two years when he hasn't aged at all they'll have to deal with the backlash from lying about it.

On the _other_ hand, if they don't do anything there's dealing with the police, autopsy, a funeral, extended family coming to mourn, Vivi needing to publicly be even more distraught at the apparent loss of her only remaining friend, and then keeping his continued existence away from people outside their 'in the know' circle they have for Lewis's secret (Lance, the Peppers, probably Duet and the Gurus)... Arthur would feel horrible about all this trouble happening because of him, but it does have to be dealt with eventually...  
  
After a short debate, pressured by the awakening of the cultists tied up in the corner, it's decided to let things play out as they will. The people would obviously be questioned and it would be hard to explain away how Arthur could survive an unknown poison without being checked out by a doctor.

  
Vivi shoots off a quick text to Lance warning him about a call he's sure to soon receive. She'll explain to him when she can but **_please_ ** _don't do anything rash in the meantime._  
That won't be a fun conversation later but worse things could happen when he gets the news... Arthur's the only family he has left besides the Gurus and they can hope the promise of more information will keep him going while they try to work things out.

The police investigation goes as well as it probably could for the group. For all intents and purposes Arthur was kidnapped, drugged, Mystery sniffed them out, and Vivi used her black belt training to subdue the cult and call an ambulance. Open and shut, cultists in jail, and a bit of old Kingsmen money keeps the story from hitting the press. (Even before Arthur's patents, there's a reason Lance can charge whatever he wants at the shop.)

* * *

All things considered, the meeting with Lance goes much better than it honestly has any right to.

  
It should help, they think, that he's already used to Lewis, so the ghost part shouldn't freak him out. The rest of it though... Arthur’s not the only one nervous for this. He and Lewis are following the girl and dog invisibly as they knock on the door. Vivi's positive the man wants to throw his entire toolbox at her when it opens, only the promise of information holding him back. There's dark circles under his eyes and his hair is unkempt, shop closed since he got the news.  
She nods in greeting, more solemn now as she begins to take in just how hard it's been for him these past few days. They left him hanging while they dealt with the police and it's jarring to see the normally unflappable man so obviously distressed.

His arms are crossed as he watches her perch on the couch, Mystery on her lap and Lewis shimmering into existence beside her.  
'Start talking.'  
As she opens her mouth to speak, there's a squeal of wheels from the hallway as the resident hamster barrels into the room. He stutters to a stop, nearly tripping over his paws trying to slow down. He scans the room frantically with wide eyes, but when Arthur doesn't appear, crumples with a sad squeak. Lance moves to bend down and pick up the wheeled rodent, rub his fur soothingly. But instead there’s a startled squeak as he’s lifted by invisible hands, Arthur melting into visibility as he raises the rodent to his face, show him he’s still there.

It’s only the threat of Galy falling that saves him from a rubber wrench to the face for making Lance worry so much.

* * *

 Ever since it discovered him floating in his room that first time, the one deadbeat in particular has grown super close to Arthur. All the deadbeats interact with the mansion's occupants, but this one often follows him around, humming and playing with his tools while he works and batting its siblings away to curl in his lap as he naps. It looks just like the rest of them, no distinguishing features Vivi can detect, but Arthur always seems to be able to pick it out of a crowd of its peers. Even _Lewis_ only has around a 60% accuracy rate when it comes to that, it must just be an Arthur thing then.  
It's unsurprising, then, that when as the group returns from that fateful mission it darts to him, changing colors, pink bleeding to a cheerful tangerine as it soaks in the newer ghost's aura. The other beats welcome him too, but are plenty comfortable staying bound to Lewis, and thus don't follow their new now-cousin.

After the funeral, the coffin is set to be moved to a 'private crypt' (read: the mansion). When it arrives, be it out of a strange sense of longing or just morbid curiosity, Arthur opens it to have a look. He peeks in, small boo hanging over his shoulder and nuzzling into his cheek for comfort.  
  
Suddenly, the left eye snaps open, a flashing bright green that locks onto him and surges out of the corpse. Arthur jumps back just in time, but the little spirit is not so lucky. [Like a rabid beast the sickly essence barrels into it, tearing into its orange body with teeth and claws as it shrieks and struggles in the vice grip.](http://answrs.tumblr.com/post/119488764885/i-have-around-a-5050-divide-on-how-to-do-this-one) Only seconds later the beat is no more, and in its place swirl from the shredded cloud of energy two smaller ghosts, one a sharp, grinning green mirror of the dismembered creature, the other now a trembling miniature of the poor spirit.

Arthur can only stare in pained frozen shock as the others come rushing down following the screams.  
Mystery wastes no time and lunges at the green spirit, biting deep into its form. At once, the orange twin screams from Arthur's arms, deep wounds appearing on its body mirroring the savage attack on the other. Arthur yells at the fox to _stop, no, you're hurting them!_ , clutching the whimpering creature to his chest.  
  
Watching his only (or is it two now?) deadbeat suffer is more than painful enough to have Arthur lashing out at the fox, sparks flying and a bolt of electricity striking the floor _hard_ just next to the vulpine.

Snapped out of, well, snapping, Mystery yelps, jumping back from his assault on the lesser spirit. He can assume now, watching closer, that this creature that has taken shape is hardly the true being from the cave, instead merely the last dredges of the demon left in Arthur's body when the rest was ripped out with extreme prejudice. They could certainly exorcise it, but now its melding with Arthurs deadbeat means the other would be banished too, and the new (full) ghost hardly looks like he'd allow that. Especially now, still running high off the emotional storm spawning from his death. It shouldn't be much more trouble than a minor poltergeist at this point though, and being bound to Arthur means it can't do much to hurt them. Case in point, it goes to swipe at his snout with sharp claws and misses by a full inch, bouncing off some invisible barrier as Arthur glares at it icily, still cradling the small trembling orange spirit.


	2. Two Things Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little drabbly bit on the un-ghostliness of it all... Or something to that effect.
> 
> Lewis isn't salty.  
> Nope.  
> Aaaaaabsolutely not.

There's two things missing when Artie goes around separate from his body. Since he's not dead, not a  _ ‘real’  _ ghost, he doesn't have a physical anchor, since his heart and core are still beating along in his body. The whites of his eyes are also, well,  _ white _ , for the same reason. It's a  _ bit  _ unsettling actually, even amongst the group, since having been around ghosts so long they've gotten used to floating _ = _ black sclera and no heart __ equals  controlled and/or braindead ghost (since the anchor ties the ghost to their ‘self’, so to speak, if it's lost _ (not destroyed, since that'd erase them completely)  _ they become a shell, no memories or anything else to keep them chugging along.)

 

It sets for the scene at the altar, where Arthur has been unable to reconnect to himself, smacking his hand up and down through the still breathing chest without the familiar being sucked back in. After a minute or two he throws his head back, lets out a strangled scream of irritation, and then (seemingly unknowingly doing so) rummages around in the chest and with a bit of tugging pulls out a familiar gold heart. The body seizes/ as it leaves, but as it settles above his (ghost) chest, the unsettled feeling he had been feeling dissipates. Then his eyes open in a sudden realization, black as oil, and

‘ _ wait… aw fuck. _ ’

 

His body- no, his corpse, couldn't survive without a living core, so Arthur’s pulling it out (because it  _ is  _ his anchor) sent it into convulsions and a quick expiring. It (he) was dead the moment the heart left its (his) physical counterpart.

(Cause of death, when the coroner would finally conclude it, would be a heart attack after some big shock to his system, maybe from the unknown poison still present in the drying veins. The woman would tell (not quite  _ assure _ , she won’t lie when speaking to the survivors of the deceased) that with the chemical wreaking mayhem across his system, he'd have been too out of it to even notice the (additional) pain.)

(Arthur is just glad he wasn't actually present to test if she was right.)

  
Lewis  _ miiiight _ be a little jealous of his death, not only for the whole  _ not actually feeling it _ (already disconnected from his body as he was), but it means his ‘death form’ is just, well, a paler version of himself. No gaping chest wounds or anything. ( _ He's  _ not _ salty. Nope. Absolutely not _ .)

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually one of my largest AUs, much more than even just this fic. As said before, I've had over four years to grow it after all. So here, have a few lil bite-sized headcanons for the road:
> 
> After so long getting used to Arthur floating around but still alive, it's jarring for them when he tilts his head to meet their eyes and his own are black. Or Lewis glimpsing the anchor on his chest as he lazes through the manor, hand automatically going to clutch the spot it should be, only to jump as his own heart is still there (instead of Arthur having taken it for some reason)  
> Then of course Lewis making extra portions for meals, Vivi suggesting dinner dates, forgetting Arthur can't just pop back into a body and eat anymore, let alone have lew possess him for the three to enjoy the outing together.
> 
> I live for comments! Especially any that ask about details not touched on in the story! (Or need clarification - I've gone over this a few good times, but it _was_ written a while ago... :uc


End file.
